The Martian

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Image result for the martian
The Martian is an interesting take on space movies since in the majority of this film it seems to be pretty accurate in the science category in terms of space travel in the future and how Mark survived on Mars, but that does not mean it was entirely true. With the help of Philip Plait's "Bad Astronomy" and his “Top Ten Examples of Bad Astronomy in Major Motion Pictures” we can assess the accuracy of the physics.

  1. Whoosh! Our Hero's spaceship comes roaring out ...
    1. This one is very common in movies, but not necessarily unknown since a silent scene in a movie wouldn't appeal to most people. Nevertheless this was in the movie. An example would be the "Iron Man" scene which make a good bit of noise in the near vacuum of space.
  2. ...of a dense asteroid field ...
    1. This movie did not show any asteroid fields, but the scenes of the ship in between planets were quite empty, so I guess that counts.
  3. ...banks hard to the left...
    1. Banking is when a vehicle can use what it is moving through to make a smooth turn, but since the stuff that spacecrafts are moving through is just a few air particles, there is not much to bank off of, but this is not an issue in The Martian since all the turning scenes use thrusters to position the ship and separate ones to propel the ship.
  4. ...and dodges laser beams from the Dreaded Enemy...
    1. Since laser beams move so incredibly fast (3*10^8 m/s) the human brain can't even comprehend the movement of  light, but there are no laser beams in The Martian, so it gets a pass.
  5. ...who have come from a distant galaxy...
    1. The Martian portrayed the vastness of space pretty well, but since there were no aliens from distant galaxies, The Martian gets another pass.
  6. ... to steal all of Earth's precious water...
    1. Again, there were no aliens in the movie, so The Martian gets a pass yet again.
  7. The Dreaded Enemy tries to escape Earth's gravity, but is caught like a fly in amber.
    1. Yet again, there are no aliens and most of the movie is on Mars which is even easier to escape the gravity of.
  8.  As Stars Flash by...
    1. The Martian did okay on this one, but much better than other movies. In most movies when a spaceship is moving, the stars in the background zoom by, but since stars are so far away, there would be such a small amount of movement it would seem absolutely motionless. The Martian did well, but there was a little bit of motion in the stars as the ship was traveling.
  9. ... Our Hero gets a lock on them and fires! A huge ball of expanding light erupts past us
    1. In space, explosions aren't even close to what they look like with an atmosphere, but since there are no explosions in this film,  there are no violations.
  10. Yelling joyously, Our Hero flies across the disk of the full Moon, with the Sun just beyond. 
    1. If you can see the full moon, the sun has to be behind you, but this scene does't happen in The Martian, so there are no violations here.
I rate this the physics in The Martian PGP-13

Comments

  1. Prof. Chris FragileNovember 17, 2019 at 1:00 PM

    You weren't meant to take the "Bad Astronomy" rules so literally. For instance, the need for water did play some role in the movie, as did gravity. And there was an explosion, when they purposefully blew the air lock to slow the Hermes down. You also could have taken better advantage of your medium here and incorporated scenes from "The Martian."

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